For months, Sylvester Zottola has been pursued by someone who wanted him dead. On Thursday evening, as night fell outside a McDonald’s on Webster Avenue in the Bronx, it appears that someone caught up with him.

Mr. Zottola, a reputed associate of New York’s Bonanno crime family, was believed to have been waiting in his S.U.V. to pick up his order at the drive-through window when he was shot dead.

In what a law enforcement official described as a mafia-style assassination, Mr. Zottola was shot once in the head and four times in the torso. He was pronounced dead at the scene. His assassin fled in what the police say was a gray vehicle, and remains at large.

It is the bloody conclusion to months’ worth of gangland-style assaults against both Mr. Zottola, 71, and his son, Salvatore, who through the 1990s and early 2000s supplied and serviced Joker Poker machines to mob-controlled gambling hubs, according to court documents.

Less than three months ago, the younger Mr. Zottola, 41, narrowly escaped his own brush with death. Ambushed by a gunman on a quiet neighborhood street in the early hours of July 11, Mr. Zottola was left for dead outside his family’s Throgs Neck compound. He was shot multiple times by an unidentified assailant, but he survived.

Caught on grainy security camera footage, the sloppy hit man sped off in an Acura TL.

That, too, was not the first overture against the family this summer. The elder Mr. Zottola was facing charges in Bronx Criminal Court for brandishing an unlicensed gun at an unknown thug who confronted him outside his home in June. The would-be assailant vanished, and Mr. Zottola was charged with criminal possession of a firearm. He was scheduled to appear in court next Tuesday.

There have been no arrests beyond the elder Mr. Zottola in connection with either incident, though investigators said they were looking at whether they were connected, and how the pair’s mafia ties could have put them in someone’s cross hairs.

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Mario Martinez heard the gunshots at the McDonald’s on Webster Avenue.CreditGregg Vigliotti for The New York Times

The investigation into the incidents was passed from the Bronx district attorney’s office to federal investigators earlier this year. Asked about the inquiry Thursday night, the United States Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

A call to Salvatore Zottola’s phone number was unanswered.

According to court documents, the elder Mr. Zottola, who was known as Sally Daz, brought his son into the fold in the late 1990s. Mr. Zottola was a noted associate of Vincent J. Basciano, who led the Bonanno crime family in the early 2000s. Mr. Zottola opened his family’s Throgs Neck compound to Mr. Basciano’s girlfriend, Debra Kalb, who lived at the family’s home around the turn of the century.

As Mr. Zottola aged, so did the vitality of his mobland ties. Mr. Basciano, who was known as Vinny Gorgeous, led the Bonanno family only briefly, before landing a life sentence in federal prison over murder and racketeering charges. Mr. Zottola’s namesake company, D.A.Z. Amusements, which serviced the mob’s poker machines, appears to have gone defunct, and new organized crime apparatuses — namely the Albanian and Russian mobs — have moved into the more traditional consigliere turf.

In the parking lot of the McDonald’s on Thursday evening, bullet holes were visible in the passenger-side window of a maroon S.U.V.

Juan Bravo, who owns an auto body shop nearby, said he was in a paint store across the street from the McDonald’s when he heard gunshots shortly before 5 p.m.

“Two minutes later it was commotion with ambulances,” he said.

Mr. Bravo said he believed that a woman and a baby were in the car, but that they appeared to be unharmed. He said that video footage from his shop and from the paint store had been shared with the police.

Mario Martinez, 25, was parked across the street in his car when he heard the gunshots. He said he quickly sped off but peered over and “saw a guy slumped in his car.”

Alexandra Cuatlayo, a high school senior who had planned to stop at the McDonald’s on the way to her home in Claremont Village, said violence was common in the neighborhood.

“For this area it’s pretty usual,” she said. “This area is really active. Around where I live, someone was shot there, too. So this area is really iffy.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Reputed Mobster Gunned Down During Wait at a Drive-Through. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe